


to be alone with you

by subcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Carpenter Castiel (Supernatural), Established Relationship, Fallen Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 02:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20556473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subcas/pseuds/subcas
Summary: Castiel builds a bed.





	to be alone with you

If you were careful enough, you could fit a joint almost seamless. It required an exacting sort of patience. But a good dovetail join could hold together without anything else but itself. Just the perfect smooth slotting of one piece of wood into another. There was a certain beauty to it, even unfinished and unvarnished. Cas liked to run his fingers over the surface. Everything in its place. 

It made him think about him and Dean. The satisfaction. When he fit Dean to himself, that’s what it felt like sometimes. When Dean fills him, and he becomes whole. He doesn’t believe they were made for each other. Maybe once he did when he still believed in God. But now he knows he chose him and carved himself out. Nothing made them fit each other but each other. 

_Yes, yes,_ he gasps into the space over Dean’s shoulder. Nothing’s ever felt so right. The first time, he was so careful with him. Measure twice, cut once. He thinks he ran his fingers over every inch of him. 

Dean came to him one day and said, “today’s your birthday.”

“I was never born, Dean.”

“I know,” he said, “that’s why I decided it.” And then he led him out to the workshop where he’d piled up black walnut timber, all cut from one tree. He’d shrugged then like it didn’t matter. “Thought you could make something for us.”

This is how Cas built their bed. Careful and precise. Sometimes Dean would work on the Impala outside the workshop and Cas would leave the doors open and watch him bobbing under the hood, humming tunelessly. Everything about Dean was golden in the sunlight. Sometimes Cas would go out and kiss him and he’d tell him, careful or I’ll get you dirty, and Cas, with sawdust sticking to his arms, would laugh and tell him he already was. Sometimes he thought, _I’ve known heaven and I prefer this_, and he knew that was blasphemy but he didn’t care because it was true.

He didn’t rush. Dean liked to tell him he could be awful impatient for how old he was, but they both knew you could get so old you got back around to feeling childish again. They’d lived longer than their bodies. Some things there was no use in being patient for, not for how short life could be. But some things had to take time. Cas knew what was worth waiting on. 

When the wood was cut, it made the workshop smell like a bonfire. Not as sweet as cedar, but he liked it. He’d used the heartwood to make the headboard. The grain was straight and true. The pieces he sold, some he carved ornately, but for their house he liked simplicity. Dean told him he must be a Shaker, and Cas said he wasn’t anything. He didn’t tell him that somehow they reminded him of Dean. Not that Dean was simple at all. Just that he preferred it like this, without ornamentation. 

The whole floor was plumed in sawdust clouds before the wood was smooth enough. The _shush_ of fine grit sandpaper was meditative. The finish took him days but he wanted it to glow. Smoothing the shellac over and over. So thin at first. Oiling, resanding, another layer then another. Buffing it out until it shone. The wood darker and richer and full of life. He never felt like he had created something beautiful, only revealed what was already there. 

Dean had grouched that he was too old to be moving furniture when they’d carried it into the house, but Cas saw how he held it with reverent hands, careful not to leave a smear of fingerprints on the surface. The sun came through the window of their bedroom and touched it and them both. It almost seemed to have its own light, burnished against the soft white sheets.

The first time Dean took him in that bed, he held him to him with greedy fingers and laughed. _Yes, yes._ This was home.


End file.
